As Craig’s final Bond film gets going I’ve started to wonder what will happen to the supporting cast they’ve been accumulating. These were my thoughts.
Q
I think Ben Whishaw should be the first to depart the series. This isn’t because I have a problem with Wishaw or his portrayal, the problem is simply time. They made a big deal of him being the young Q but there’s a good chance the next Bond will be a contemporary or even younger than him (he’ll be at least 40 by the time Bond 26 rolls around).
Since Q is effectively a job title switching actors would be pretty straightforward, just a line of dialogue to explain why the last one left and introduce the new one. Since there’s no need to replicate Wishaw’s Q this could be an interesting opportunity to reinvent the character.
Moneypenny
I’d like to see Naomie Harris continue as Moneypenny alongside the next Bond but they’ll most likely need to recast for the Bond after that.
M
I’m hoping they keep Ralph Fiennes for the foreseeable future, he’s a fantastic actor and a terrific addition to the series.
Tanner
Like Fiennes I’d like to see Kinnear stick with the series for a while.
Felix
I’m hoping Wright gets one more outing in Bond 25 but after that I think the role will need to be recast in order to keep Bond and Felix as contemporaries.
Whoever plays them, I hope they’re given less emphasis. The recent Bonds have almost evolved into an ensemble affair like Mission Impossible or Star Trek. Bond works better when he flies solo. Leave the office staff in the office and leave that earpiece in a box at home.
For me Fiennes and in particular Wishaw are the best thing to happen to the franchise in many years (since casting Craig, i guess).
To lose them would be very careless.
Harris’ Monneypenny is the weak link. Her role requires a lot of wry humour and she’s unable to deliver it without sounding cringingly arch. She’s good at the dramatic aspect, but going forward there will likely be little call for it.
Kinnear is ok as Tanner, though he goes a little too far in his ‘Oh my god, what’s Bond doing?’ moments. Recasting won’t hurt, but neither is it a necessity.
Jef Wright is a superb actor who’s been criminally overlooked as Felix. Perhaps that’s just the way the cookie crumbled in terms of the stories they came up with, but it’s a real shame. I say use him or lose him - would be marvellous if they gave Wright a role, but if i were him, left on the bench game after game, i’d want a transfer (my poor analogy not withstanding).
Recast them all after BOND 25. Fiennes is the only one that I’d want to stay, but his stature as an actor ensures that the filmmakers will be trying to shoe-horn him into as many scenes as they can.
The remaining MI6 cast (Wishaw, Harris, and Kinnear) just haven’t impressed nearly enough to warrant the kind of longevity that Llewelyn and Maxwell achieved back in the day.
I say keep them all for as long as they want the roles just reduce their presence in future films. The only one who should ever cross Bond’s path in the field is Q. Everyone else should stay in London.
One of the things I love about the earlier films is that Bond can change (Connery, Lazenby, Moore), yet the MI6 team would always remain the same. Added a nice degree of consistency.
Just to clarify; I wasn’t criticising Wishaw, I just don’t think he’s work opposite any Bond after Craig. When he was introduced in Skyfall much of the Q/Bond dynamic was based on him being a much younger man :
Bond:Because you still have spots.
&
Q: Age is no guarantee of efficiency.
Bond: And youth is no guarantee of innovation.
After an introduction like that it would just feel wrong to see him play against a Bond who would now be much closer to him in age.
I get what you mean, but I think Whishaw’s Q can work with any Bond since he plays the character well, the nerdiness of Q opposed to Bond is a nice dynamic that can work with other Bond as well I think
People change and mature. One of the story points in Skyfall is Q’s youthful arrogance coming back to bite him in the ass when Silva hacks into MI6 because of Q’s actions. Q learns from this. Q’s relationship with Bond can also evolve. We’ve already seen that in Spectre where Q is getting back into gadgets. It’s more than pushing buttons on a computer. That arc can continue regardless of Craig.
I for one would love to see a lot more “old school” spy gadgets that can’t be hacked into. Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.
Wishaw’s first scene with Craig, in the National Gallery is one of my favourite Bond scenes ever. The dialogue is crisp and wonderfully witty without ever dumbing itself down to a lowest common denominator (something Bond scripts had long been guilty of). This scene is so good not just because the script is great, nor because of the age dynamic, but because they are both great actors.
I appreciate the argument that perhaps it’s this scene’s very excellence - making it indelibly inked into the Bond canon’s hall of fame - which makes it hard to swallow a different age dynamic with Wishaw hence. That’s a fair point, but to remedy this by re-casting such a fine actor as Wishaw calls to mind that phrase involving a baby and its bath water.
The great thing about having an actor of Wishaw’s calibre is that he’ll make you believe whatever the script calls for; whether Bond be younger, older, or the same age he’ll make a virtue of it.
Allowing such talent to depart would be very careless.
Love Fiennes and I think having an M of “heft” is essential. While Robert Brown was servicable in his tenure, the thought of TD matched up with either Dench or Fiennes would have been something.
While I loved Whishaw’s introduction in SF, I felt that SP demonstrated that EON seemed more than happy to allow Q the character to slide into caricature. If that’s where we’re going, then to a large extent, why bother bringing in the likes of Whishaw, Fiennes etc. Kinnear as Tanner? Great, but then let’s give them a little more than exposition.
As for Jeffrey Wright? The best Felix ever, undone by underwriting, wasting an actor the series should have highlighted. Then again, missed opportunity is something that EON has done well over the years…
James Bond was supposedly a young agent on his first mission in two films, the next film he is an aged and past his prime relic of the past… I don’t think EON are letting character consistency get in the way of story telling - They will all be back for next one - we might even get another Dench flashback Post Craig - they might keep Fiennes, they don’t seem to chop and change Q so much, so I dare say they’ll keep Whishaw (I believe he is also one of BB’s favourite actors from the theatre which is how he got the role) - Moneypenny might be the only one to get the chop but it depends how young they go and how long it takes for the next film to be made after #25
Post Craig - they might keep Fiennes, they don’t seem to chop and change Q so much, so I dare say they’ll keep Whishaw (I believe he is also one of BB’s favourite actors from the theatre which is how he got the role) - Moneypenny might be the only one to get the chop but it depends how young they go and how long it takes for the next film to be made after